


Faith Can Keep You Warm (But I'll Teach You How To Shake)

by Meduseld



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Internal Conflict, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Sleeping Together, could fit better, for them both, slightly AU, this would still work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27474484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Joseph only ever comes to him in the dark.
Relationships: Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed, Male Deputy | Judge/Joseph Seed
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Faith Can Keep You Warm (But I'll Teach You How To Shake)

There are little noises in the night. 

The hum of his refrigerator, small and old but sturdy, the rustle of Boomer making his rounds around the house and the rest of the buildings, an owl in flight, every once in a while an ominous rumble from the pipes. It’s normal, comforting. 

True silence never bodes well. 

He learned that long before he sold himself over to Uncle Sam and got shot at in the wake of the too-quiet overseas. 

It’s different, these Montana night sounds, from the noise of a military camp, or of a city, but familiar already. 

He likes the tiny little side house Rae-Rae rents to him, generously calling it a guest cottage, twenty feet or so from her own, the easy rhythms of the farm around him. 

He likes Hope County. 

It’s like a warzone and a home all at once and he’s comfortable there in a way that should be worrying. The fact that he’s waiting for another sound, a disturbance in the calm, should be more worrying. 

It’s dangerous, what he’s doing. 

Life-threatening. 

He doesn’t know any other kind of way to feel alive. 

There, somewhere in the blue moonlight, he hears it. The lift and catch of the small door, angled away from Rae-Rae’s property. 

He has a feeling her ex slept here, before the prefix was official. 

It’s stupid, keeping the door unlocked. Just because Hope County is rural and community-minded doesn’t make it safe. 

He’s cleaned up enough blood by now, the rookie’s gig, to know that.

But he has nothing worth stealing, his gun always on him. 

And this way, Joseph can move through his house like an eager ghost. 

The haunting he was waiting for. 

Rook is fully awake the second his foot hits the floor, but he doesn’t move except to sit up, to wait. To pull the duvet off his body so there’s nothing stopping his gaze but Rook’s worn boxers. 

Joseph looks tired, in the dim light. Like he’s been up too long. And something in his face softens in relief when he meets Rook’s eyes. 

Like Rook is the salvation he’s been praying for, even if scripture says different. 

It’s funny, really. 

They don’t plan. They never do. No see you here and then, away from prying eyes. 

Joseph comes when he can, and somehow, Rook is always only half-asleep those nights, ears open. 

He knows to keep his mouth shut, for a while. That Joseph could bolt like a scared colt. 

Instead he wiggles a foot, just a little. 

Joseph reaches out, grabs. Hard. Not enough to hurt, but like he’s forcing the exhaustion out. Into Rook’s body. 

Hopefully he’ll be putting other things into him soon. 

Joseph rubs his feet absently, like he’s putting his thoughts in order. 

It’s a little funny, if anyone came in, right now, somehow, they could still say this is innocent. 

The shepherd tending to his duty, even if Rook isn’t that. 

Isn’t a believer, isn’t a member of his flock, isn’t, to the world, anything but a member of law enforcement with a tense but cordial relationship with the Seeds. The biggest landowners in the region, filthy rich now even if they still live modestly, headed up by the same spiritual leader half the county bows to. 

Joseph is the most powerful man in miles. 

And that’s without getting into the more underhanded things they do, and that the Sheriff’s office knows about but can’t prove. 

If they see each other in the daylight, it’s uniformed and distant enough to nod. 

Just like that, he can’t contain himself any longer. 

Rook reaches out his hands and Joseph melts into him, sinking against his body, mewling into his chest, letting Rook let loose his hair, run his fingers through it, kiss his forehead, his eyelids, his lips, his neck. 

There’s no mistaking their embrace. 

If Joseph’s brothers walked in right now, Rook would have to prepare for a beating. 

He thinks it would be worth it, for this. 

Wrapping himself around Joseph, Rook’s body bigger and taller and reveling in it. 

The soft sigh he gives when Rook rolls them over, tucks Joseph under him. 

The blind trust as Rook strips him, the soft awe as he traces calloused fingertips over the ridges of Rook’s jaw and nose and cheekbones and eyebrows. 

“I dreamt of you” Joseph whispers, and it doesn’t feel like it’s because this is a secret, an armed landmine, but because it’s intimate and precious. 

Rook kisses him, slowly, tasting him as deeply as he can. 

“I dreamt-” he says but Rook never finds out what, because Joseph’s words die at Rook’s teeth digging into his neck. 

Not hard enough to bruise, no matter how badly he wants to. 

He wants to be able to keep doing this, wants more nights, and he can’t if Joseph is brought low like so many preachers before him, with a tawdry little sex scandal with a buxom parishioner, for all that Rook is neither, for all that this isn’t that. 

It isn’t love, either. Rook doesn’t know what it is. 

What he does know is that he can’t, _won’t_ , live without this. 

He can’t give up the feeling of Joseph under him, gripping his forearms with anticipation, like it’s the first time all over again, trusting Rook to open him up, making sounds Rook wants to keep under his skin. 

Biting at Rook’s lip like he’s stealing. 

The way he’s hot and silky and tight, deep inside, gripping Rook like they were both made for this. 

Hiding his face against Rook’s neck as he calls him beautiful, so _good_ for him. Like no one’s ever said it.

They move in sync, every time, and Rook’s never felt so goddamn understood. The only thing that makes it better is what comes next.

The quiet gasp right against the shell of his ear as he comes, sticky and scalding against Rook’s belly. 

His nails digging hard against the hollow between Rook’s shoulder blades as he thrusts, _hard_ , and then goes boneless against Joseph’s lean body, laid out beneath him. 

He gets to see Joseph like this. Have him like this. _Make_ him like this. 

It’s the closest thing to peace Rook has ever found, when they’re like this, blood hot and panting, breathing into each other’s mouths, with skin to skin to skin so close he can’t really tell where one ends and another begins. 

Sometimes he thinks the only reason he ever gets to sleep is the smell of Joseph’s hair pressed into his sheets. 

Rae-Rae has offered, more than once, to wash them for him with her own linens, taking pity on a man alone, and thought Rook was being polite when he refused. Sharky told him that, believed it too. They're wrong.

This is his, _theirs_ , alone. 

He would fight God for it, if he had to. It’s not like he would need encouragement. 

He knows Joseph does fight, wrestles with the Voice of Heaven inside his head. 

Sometimes, he kisses Rook and shakes like it’s poison, killing him. 

Sometimes, if it’s really bad, he asks Rook to come to church. He hasn’t, so far. 

It’s for the better, he tries to be sure. It would bring undue attention. And Rook usually has the Sunday shifts anyway. He’s the new guy.

“You should rest” Rook says, something far from physical in him twinging at the way Joseph’s fighting to keep his eyes open. 

“I cannot” Joseph says, even though his voice is fading out like the end of one of Wheaty’s records. 

“Just for a while. I’ll keep watch” Rook says. He can’t drive like this. 

Not that Rook heard, or ever hears, a car. He might spend all his free time learning the secret roads and river ways of the county, the Henbane and the Whitetail Mountains, but the Seeds have years of experience on him, and Joseph walks quiet. 

“A moment” Joseph says and his eyes finally shut, eyes moving behind the lids. That’s not a good sign, he knows. There’s not much he can do but give him this, a few moments of respite.

Staring at the ceiling, he wonders what he means to Joseph. If anything. If it’ll be the last time. It’s not the first time he does. Usually Joseph isn’t with him

Then, when there’s no more time to spare, Rook shakes him awake, careful.

It’s like a slow knife, dragging from his navel all the way up to his sternum, the bleary blue starting to focus, soft and sure, like Joseph wakes up to him all the time. 

He doesn’t say anything as he leaves, and Rook doesn’t try, either. Learned that the hard way. 

It’s so quiet, when he goes. Like he wasn’t there in the first place. 

His bed feels icy, for all that they sweated in it, made it warm. 

At least the throb left by the tracks of nails on his back says he was. 

The way he can feel phantom trace of Joseph’s hand running down his face, like a benediction. 

If he really wanted Rook could just lock the door, tomorrow. 

Stop this cold, whatever this is.

He probably should. But he doesn’t want to. 

All he wants, on nights like this, is to roll over, bring a pillow close, breathe Joseph’s scent in deep and follow it into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write something with that title, which is a line from [_Gonna Make You Love Me_ by Ryan Adams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Cg8yKdX44) because how could I not want to. And then the summary came to me and the rest of this fell out.


End file.
